I had intended to do all the work myself but having had the car for so long I am anxious to start driving so the new plan is to do the strip down and let a local restoration company fix the bodywork. The engine will go off to a specialist engine shop as the waterways are heavily corroded and need to be rebuilt. During the strip down photos were taken at every stage to assist reassembly. Parts were logged on a spread sheet to make finding them easy - it's surprising how many boxes are needed to hold an e-type.
After 42 years everything about this car is 'tired', most parts can be restored but a lot will have to be replaced. The engine frames look to be in good condition except for some jacking damage to the picture frame and radiator support. Several months of work here on the smaller items alone - I'm glad I decided to contract out some of the heavier work.
To minimise the damage to the body panels from excessive blasting most of the paint and filler are removed using a hot-air gun. The paint comes off in long strips once there is some heat in the panel, not nearly as difficult as I had expected. Looks like it has been re-sprayed twice, once in a darker blue, then white.
The inside is much tougher, old soundproofing has melted with time and added to contact adhesive from a very bad re-trimming job it makes for a real mess. It's slow work but the same method as used on the outside does it.
Before work on the interior can continue the electrical equipment has to be removed. A couple of days were spent on this, taking lots of pictures and making drawings, this looks like a potential time waster if I get it wrong. Although the looms will be replaced they were removed intact so I have the originals should I need to make comparisons later. Owing to the age of the looms some of the colour coding was indistinct so wires were labelled where necessary.
The remaining paint and filler are removed with a plastic preparation wheel leaving bright metal. With the paint removed the bare metal is protected with a coat of zinc primer. There are several large dents and I must have removed a bucket of filler, plenty of slide hammer holes also. The lower panels are left as I don't want to put in a lot of work on metal that may be removed later.
After many hours of work it's looking much better!
The foot wells are completely rotted out and although the rest of the floor is in better shape, now seems like the time to replace the complete thing.
Right hand cross member has some corrosion, once the floor is out a decision will be made as to repair or replace it.
Rust in the rear bulkhead at floor level to be repaired. Inner and outer sills appear to be in reasonable condition but the outer ones will be replaced as I want to check the condition of the sill braces and paint the inside of the inner sill.
The driver's side bulkhead is badly distorted, probably caused by jacking under the foot well. Jacking at the wrong places has caused more damage to this car than the ravages of time.
The boot is a real mess, looks like it was sprayed with a mixture of sand and paint. Don't fancy taking it on by hand so the blasters can do it when they do the engine bay. The distortion to the centre box section was probably caused by a jack used to push out damage to the right hand wing. Once the fuel tank was out damage to the wheel arches could be seen, looks as if it has been hit in both rear wings. The fuel tank will have to be replaced as it has rusted through where it sits on a jute pad, fortunately the boot floor is sound. Fuel pumps for this model were submersible, don't know the origin of this one so it will be replaced with a more modern type.